Regenerative urban design: coupling food reconnection with pollinator biodiversity in the public space

As part of Urban Agriculture Month, Sustain is delighted to host Dr Barbara Ribeiro from the Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland. This event will be co-hosted by Dr Andrew Butt, Associate Professor in Sustainability and Urban Planning in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies (GUSS) and the Centre for Urban Research (CUR) at RMIT University.

This is a free event. However we welcome donations for our work engaging with youth facing barriers to employment and education, as well as supporting soil-to-stomach education for primary school children, at Sustain's Oakhill Food Justice Farm in Preston.

About the presentations

Barbara Ribeiro will share insights from the Regenerative Urban Design project at Monarch Park in Waharoa (NZ) which reconnects people with place while feeding pollinators at the same time. She will explore the genealogy of this innovative, co-designed project and reflect on the transformation of a 400m2 parcel of publicly owned land in partnership with the Matamata-Piako District Council and an Iwi Trust comprised of Māori families. The lessons learned from these two sites are now informing a third implementation in the capital of New Zealand, Wellington. This project was awarded the RDF Large Project grant and features on the University of Auckland Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries' Future Cities Research hub.

Following Barbara's presentation, Kelly Donati from Sustain: The Australian Food Network will present findings from the Growing Edible Cities and Towns report. In early 2022 Sustain worked with Agriculture Victoria to conduct a first-ever mapping and survey of the urban agriculture sector in Victoria. They will present findings from the research and a roadmap for addressing critical challenges that face the sector and for building on the strength of its social and environmental commitments.

About the speakers

Dr Barbara Ribeiro

Barbara is the principal investigator leading the transdisciplinary team working on the Regenerative Urban Design project at Monarch Park. She is passionate about finding pathways for mainstreaming sustainability transitions in the wider social domain. Her research agenda focuses on Design for Sustainability Transitions (DfST) in Urbanism and related innovation and transformation mechanisms (e.g. strategic investment and foresight). Barbara’s action research aims at activating multiple values in publicly owned land through regenerative urban design strategies. Barbara worked in sustainability roles in New Zealand and published scientific papers and technical reports about pathways to more sustainable futures. Her transformative research agenda is influenced by work experience at the Auckland Council’s Research and Monitoring Unit (Chief Planning Office), a secondment as a Senior Sustainability & Resilience Advisor to the Chief Sustainability Office, and a PhD and post-doc in Sustainability Transitions in New Zealand. She is currently with the University of Auckland Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries, a reviewer for the Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability at Taylor & Francis, and a Reviewer Board Member for the Climate Journal at MDPI.

Project team

• Dr Barbara Ribeiro - Lecturer in Design, Elam School of Fine Arts
• Associate Professor Daniel Exeter - School of Population Health, FMHS
• Dr David Pattemore - Senior Lecturer at the University of Auckland School of Biological Sciences and Productive Biodiversity & Pollination Science Group leader at the Plant & Food Research CRI

Dr Kelly Donati

Kelly is Sustain’s founding Board Director/Chairperson and led Sustain’s research on the urban agriculture sector in Victoria. She also coordinates and lectures in Australia's only Bachelor of Food Studies and Master of Food Systems and Gastronomy at William Angliss Institute. Her unique interdisciplinary research and teaching practice focuses on urban foodways, community food systems, gastronomy and fermentation. In 2020, she co-authored the Pandemic Gardening Survey Report with Nick Rose. In 2019/2020, she was a research fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich, Germany.